what we need to work on

improving senior BAME representation

We’re really proud of our overall ethnic diversity – with 38% of all our people, including 46% of those who aren’t managers (who together represent 74% of our people), saying they’re from a BAME background. This is higher than in the UK as a whole, and means we’re closer to reflecting the diversity of our local community in East London.

However, looking in more detail at different levels of our organisation, we know there are things we need to improve. In particular, we currently have fewer people from BAME backgrounds in senior roles – and despite having gender balance on our executive team and board, we don’t yet have BAME representation there.

To help us move forward, we’ll be drawing on the support and experience of our BAME employee network, Embrace. Over the next few months, we’ll be reviewing our recruitment practices and talent pipeline to ensure we’re attracting, retaining and promoting talented people from the widest possible talent pool. We’ve already taken steps toward this: for example, trialling “name blind” applications.

38% of all our employees come from BAME backgrounds, but it’s

16% for our senior managers only

38% of all our employees come from BAME backgrounds, but it’s

16% for our senior managers only

supporting different needs

Many of our people have formal or informal arrangements in place to support their disability or long-term health need. In addition to meeting the legal obligations we have as an employer, we’re an accredited Disability Confident organisation. We also partner with external specialists to help us make reasonable adjustments that enable people in our workplace.

With almost 200 members, our disability network, Enable, help raise awareness about what it’s like to work with a disability. Together with our mental wellbeing network, Enable are helping to put in place a new reasonable adjustments policy. This will help us do even more to ensure we’re taking a fair and consistent approach, so everyone’s able to perform at their best.

We can also see that a smaller proportion of our people tell us they’ve got a disability compared with the UK average – 7%, compared with around 20%. In addition to ensuring our recruitment and selection processes are fair and accessible to everyone, we’ll be continuing to promote a culture where people feel comfortable telling us about their own circumstances. This will help us get a clearer picture of the support we might need to provide – and we’ll also be helping our managers to identify where people might need that support.

I’ve set up a working group to help us better support people with different needs. Enable give an invaluable insight into what it’s like to experience disability at work, and what we need to do better.